What is the purpose of a preliminary name search for an entity in the state of California?

The state of California is one of the states, that is still in a transition period to blanket business registration services electronically.  The primary goal to check a company name with the California Secretary of state database to avoid a delay, rejection and re-submit the article.

What is the process to check the name availability in California?

• The entity name is searched by an entity name or number. Once the name searches in the California state database, you can either call for the state of California to confirm and reserve the name.
• California charges $4.00 to confirm the name and $17.00 to reserve the available name.
• Special characters are not used to search a business name in the state of California database.
• Either a keyword or entity number along with a letter "C" is used to search a business name.
• Identifiers or the extensions are not used to search a business name in California such as corp, corporation, inc, incorporated, limited, llc, ltd and partnership, because the state of California has divided corporation, limited liability company and limited partnership in a different tables to search the results according to an entity type.
• A keyword length should not be exceeded more than 12 characters to populate proper results from the database of the California secretary of state.